8 billion afghanis saved in procurement contracts

KABUL (Pajhwok): President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani said on Saturday the purpose behind scrutiny of defence ministry related procurement contracts was to ensure provision of more facilities and better services to security forces.

The president expressed these view during a weekly meeting of National Procurement Commission (NPC) in which contracts of public health, finance defence ministries, hajj commission and new Kabul Bank were scrutinized.

Some of the procurement contracts were approved and some others need more deliberations to make them transparent, a statement from Presidential Palace said.

As many as 196 million have been saved in the defence ministry contracts during a meeting held on Saturday, the statement said, adding that a total 1.5 billion afghanis had been saved in the defence ministry contracts after its procurement administration was handed over to civilians officials.

A total of eight billion afghanis had been recovered from going waste following oversight and strict observation by NPC.

The president said the purpose of NPC was to ensure transparency in the government and particularly the defence ministry procurement contracts and concentrate more on logistic and expenditures of security forces.

He directed members of the NPC to hold meetings with anti-corruption officials of private companies and discussed with them the approved contracts and its implementation.

During the meeting, officials of the Resolute Support (RS) mission assured that they would provide $200 million for restoring electricity supply to the military corps from the Afghanistan Breshna Shirkat (ABS). Earlier they were provided electricity form generators.

The NPC meeting for the first time approved the fuel contract for the Afghan Air Force which would be paid from the national exchequer.

RS officials praised performance of NPC and said such efforts would help ensure transparency and good governance in the Afghan government institutions.